I sincerely hope she's jotting down thoughts & feelings to use as lyrics later. Her songs have often seemed very forced over the last few years; like even when they were honest you got the feeling she was sitting down & saying "Okay, song lyrics..." and partly reusing old phrases & thoughts in order to get the song's story told. Like she's REMEMBERING feeling things, but not actually FEELING them as she's writing, you know? So I hope she's writing things down AS she feels them, so she can turn them into lyrics later. Maybe not in a structured setting, but writing things down nonetheless. It'd be nice for her lyrics to feel like feelings more often again.

Idk, I feel like her lyrics lately seem like things she would feel and stuff lately. Even if not all of them are things she's going though at the moment. Especially RnRC, Love songs, and Party Queen. And even Love again, though to a lesser extent to me because I'm not as familiar. And then Colours. They're just kind of different. And I feel like, some of those things can't be related to as easily by some fans as maybe some of her earlier lyrics or expressed as well. Especially if they're similar to any past feelings, it may be hard to express without rehashing. With all her albums though, I don't think she was necessarily feeling everything as opposed to remembering.

Hello new me is one of those songs where it really seems like she's was really feeling it lyrically. But not every song is like that. And I think she's always had songs that are more like that and some less. I think the way it's delivered influences how it seems it too.

I agree. I could see it being hard for not to feel as if it's a chore and not necessarily her way of getting some relief. I too think her lyrics are too "themed" in a certain way recently.

In other news Itano Tomomi sold 700 copies

Remember when everybody was paranoic and bashing ayu because an AKB girl was about to outsell her?

I remember someone even said that Itano album will win in the long run hahahaha

Speaks volumes about Ayu's current popularity when some of her fans are worried about a newcomer. :D

Those pictures are absolutely gorgeous. I like when she does pictures in that style.

Do y'all really still need to make rude, unnecessary comments about tomomi and ayu?

We all know where their popularity and sales are and and it's fine. Nothing negative especially for fans who still like their stuff

i reall like this album but i feel like its just missing something...
I cant really place my finger on it.
I would love to know how well this did digitally

I dont know if any of you guys are aware if this but we're facing this week one of the poorest weeks ever on Oricon Album Ranking, the #1 will hardly hit 15k... That is pretty sad.

Yeah GIRLS' GENERATION will take the #1 spot for second time in a row

A newcomer who was part (if not the face) of the most succesful girlband at the moment. Yeah, right.:rolleyes

Colours is #65 this week, sold 1,022 copies and brings a total of 50,847 copies sold so far :)

The face was Maeda Atsuko.

Itano Tomomi was heavily featured, but that's it.

Idols don't do that well once they graduate from their group. It didn't happen with anyone from Morning Musume (not even Maki Goto) and it won't happen with anyone from AKB48 (Maeda is more focused on acting than singing).

Yamapi and Namie disagree...

There was no way to know how good Tomomi would do before we actually saw the sales...

But Super Monkeys were not a typical Japanese girlgroup like Momusu or AKB48 and the primary focus was lying on Namie from the beginning. Super Monkeys never were really popular and only the first three singles were released under the name Super Monkeys. After that the next two were released under Amuro Namie with Super Monkeys and the last two were released under the name Amuro Namie alone. And most of the time the other girls were just featured as background vocals. The label just realised that the group woudn't be a hit but Amuro had potential.

YamaP was able to make a solo career without NEWS because of the same reason Namie was never just another member of Super Monkeys. Boygroups don't have this whole graduation thing going on so he was able to make himself relevant over a few years within the group.

But bands like Momusu and AKB48 are based on a concept that makes its members totally irrelevant and just wants to introduce new members as soon as the others become boring. The only one who was able to make herself a little relevant was Goto Maki, but even she never got real fame outside of Momusu.

So I think one can't compare Amuro Namie or YamaP to members of Momusu or AKB48, because the initial situation is totally different when you're a member of a group which is based on a graduation concept and not on let's say five members which won't be replaced.

They all are/were idols groups, even if the structure was far different than AKB48. And even if AKB48 and Momusu has tons of members, there are always those who get the most attention, and as a consequence get to sing the most, appear more on videos and most likely to be part of different units. Mari Yaguchi is a good example of someone who was the focal point of one of those massive groups, to the point that she still is (somewhat) relevant as a celebrity to this day.

So glad it passed the 50k mark finally!

It's NOT the same: SUPER MONKEYS was "Namie Amuro and some backdancers" like D&D which was "OLIVIA and some backdancers"

AKB was not Maeda and backdancers, there was a plenty of other members which can, at least, compete with her in terms of popularity, singing lines and PV spotlight.

^that was my point ;)

I'm no AKB fan and I watched the new Tamochin PV out of curiosity. gotta say I understand no hype about her, because imo she has no voice and appearance or charisma, and the PV looked like a Namie Amuro pull off. moreover, her outfit in the PV was also Namie-Amuraa style and it was so obvious I cried.

Maeda Atsuko seemed to have enough popularity and a good start but then she quit and started acting...

I don't want to go OT but in defence of Tomomi she's a great dancer, she does have talent differently from many other acts imho. I like her a lot even though i never believed she could be a threat to ayu or whatever XD this is not meant to hype the ayu/tomomi fight discussion! But she does have talent, I hope she can be recognised a bit more in the future
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y46PdMiLLe8 <